recap in pics

The past few weeks have been crazy busy!!  In the same way that things are ending for you, many of our Bible studies, MOPS groups, and other extracurricular activities are winding down.  Part of me is happy while the other part is super sad because I won't be seeing my friends as often.  Here's a recap of our busy week.....

our mommy & son date to the Avengers.

Epic.

Zahara and her troll, Pretty,

formerly known as Ugly.

these rocks are the best thing since solid food!

my muscle man

Ana sporting her normal 

attitude of 

'no way will I do what you want me to do' 

(looking at the camera)

the science museum where I met

Becky Daye of Daye by Daye

Becky and I 

Better Writer friends.

She wrote about how we came

to be friends here 

and did a better job than I could.

So if you're wondering, go here.

There's a baby starfish to the direct right of my

finger.  So tiny!!! There were hundreds in this tank!

I'm not sure what happened to my Pringles,

but this is what they looked like when I opened

the can.  Wowza!

Like I said, this week was a doozy for a 

few different weekends.  You can read a little

bit more about it here if you want.

I'm off adventuring this weekend,

but I'll be back on Monday. 

Until then....

adieu.

identity

Today's topic of identity fit so well with the series I just finished that I couldn't NOT write about it.  So here goes, five minutes, no editing :-)

My labels are long-stuck.  I've written them across myself with ink no one else can see.  Some of them are easily discerned.  Labels like mother are easily understood, especially when you see me out and about with my four hooligans.  Unless, you think I'm the babysitter, which according to recent comments, many people think I am.  
I'm alive so I must be someone's daughter, right?  Someone must have borne me.  She did and for her I am forever grateful. 
I have a brother, so that makes me a sister.  I have friends and so I am labeled a friend.  
But what about the labels of things I no longer am?  Throughout the past year I have been scrubbing away at a label and it's weird now that it's finally gone.  The seemingly permanent marker has been replaced by a shadow, a circle of un-tanned skin where a ring used to sit....it's a label, and it's gone.  
But there's one label that's indelible.  It's not tanned or white.  It's not removable, shake-able, or erasable, and that's the label that says I'm His.  
And no piece of paper can take that away. 

And This Brings You To Today...

Every pregnancy I have gone into labor earlier and earlier.  It's never been early enough to alarm anyone, but I knew with Isabella that I probably wouldn't make it past 38 weeks and that was just fine with me.  The night before I went into labor was the night of the septic tank debacle so after that ordeal my labor seemed pretty uneventful...we got to the hospital, yes, I' was really in labor, and then we just sat around, waiting for the baby to make her entrance.  Finally at five thirty PM on February 8, Isabella was born.  

She proceeded to have some issues just like her brother Roman had and we spent some time in the NICU.  <-----craziness.  

The crazy continued to take over life.  Many of you know that I'm single now.  The details which led to that are not something I'm willing to blog about, but I would like to pick up at the point at which I became single.  

Last August I moved into a house very close to my grandparents.  I always said I wanted to live in an old house, but I was sure that if I ever lived in an older house it would be in an old broken down farmhouse.  Instead, I moved into a charming 1920's house.  I'm in love with it and interestingly it was the one house I looked at that I thought I hated until I went through it...then I fell in love with it.  

Since then, I've been a single mom to four kids.  For inquiring minds, their dad is still very involved with them.  We might not be together, but he is a great dad and the kids have his undivided attention when they're with him.  I can't complain.  

That being said, the past ten months have not been easy; far from it, in fact.  I'm still learning how to walk through this unexpected season with a good attitude.  I struggle daily with how to keep a house clean, raise children who love God, and how to shoulder the many (albeit wonderful) responsibilities God has entrusted to me.  

Thank you so much for wanting to read my story.  My hope is that you've been able to see that through the ups and the downs, the scripted and the unexpected, that God was right there with me, the same way He promises to be for you.

Many blessings on you, friend.